Reaper for WvW

[Sylpheed.8163]

Due to the wvw patch last month, my main's build pretty much got demolished and I have hardly any enjoyment playing it now. While looking for new builds with similar playstyles, I came across reaper and it's been intriguing me. Are there any bruiser type builds for reaper? As in, decent sustain/tankiness while still being able to dish out good damage. Currently theory crafting a cavalier armor, rest berserker reaper but I'm open to any suggestions. This is mainly for small scale and roaming, as zerg wars makes my pc explode.

[Josiah.2967]

I don't believe Reaper is viable anymore. Core Necro seems to perform much better in most areas, and Scourge will always have a place. Reaper got the short end of the stick.

[RisenHowl.2419]

core, reaper, and scourge are all viable in wvw right now

there's also a large variety of builds available for each, depends on what you want to do with it. do you need high personal sustain? corrupts? CC? Res?

[Sylpheed.8163]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:core, reaper, and scourge are all viable in wvw right now

there's also a large variety of builds available for each, depends on what you want to do with it. do you need high personal sustain? corrupts? CC? Res?

I see. I stated in my original post that I was looking for personal sustain with decent damage using reaper. My original idea was to sustain and build life force and burst with reaper's onslaught+death perception and repeat. This is for small scale/roaming, even if necro has terrible mobility. Of course, all of this is theory crafting as I actually haven't played my necro at all, so I figured I'd ask for some feedback before crafting my gear.

[Infusion.7149]

For roaming, mobility remains a problem so that's why core necro and reaper are favored for roaming since scourge doesn't have much mobility and doesn't have an extra health bar to blunt that lack of mobility. Reaper needs life force generation to be viable because it loses life force faster (so deaths or life force generating skills /traits such as axe 2 , focus 4, Greatsword skills, staff auto) whereas core necro runs signet of undeath and condi (so scepter 3) to generate life force.

Reaper has some of the highest power damage in WvW now and if deaths are occurring the life force problem is minimal so to call it underpowered is really shortsighted. The damage coefficients are actually higher than Photon Forge and unlike in PVP , life force from deaths in larger scale fights and at camps are less of an issue.

edit: P.S. if you want to play in larger scale fights turn off reflections/shadows and set model limit to low

[RisenHowl.2419]

@Sylpheed.8163 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:core, reaper, and scourge are all viable in wvw right now

there's also a large variety of builds available for each, depends on what you want to do with it. do you need high personal sustain? corrupts? CC? Res?

I see. I stated in my original post that I was looking for personal sustain with decent damage using reaper. My original idea was to sustain and build life force and burst with reaper's onslaught+death perception and repeat. This is for small scale/roaming, even if necro has terrible mobility. Of course, all of this is theory crafting as I actually haven't played my necro at all, so I figured I'd ask for some feedback before crafting my gear.

For gear, you can work with full marauders gear or a mix of marauders/cavalier. If you're taking death perception you need 67% crit without fury, 47% if you have a reliable source of fury.

3 traitlines can help with crit rate:-death perception in soul reaping gives +33% in shroud-curses gives fury when entering shroud, +precision, and +2% crit per condition on your target-reaper has a trait that gives +2% crit rate per stack of vulnerability, combos well with the spite trait that applies 3 stacks of vuln every time you chill

3 traitlines help with personal sustain:-blood magic, just all of it-death magic, +toughness, protection, and condi clear-reaper trait that grants 5% of melee damage dealt as health

mix and match to find what works for you =D

[trixantea.1230]

In WvW, Reaper is behind core and scourge in almost every aspect. It may perform a bit well in organized groups, but when it comes to roaming reaper is only good for killing guards, noobs and like 2-3 other specs from other classes.

[KrHome.1920]

@"trixantea.1230" said:In WvW, Reaper is behind core and scourge in almost every aspect. It may perform a bit well in organized groups, but when it comes to roaming reaper is only good for killing guards, noobs and like 2-3 other specs from other classes.Tell that to my fanclub-guilds in wvw. And I play reaper exclusively.

Signet Reaper (shroud camping) with speed rune is a great roaming build with unmatched mobility for necro standards since you can stay in shroud and cast RS2 several times in a row while having basically superspeed all the time. If you want to even improve that, change spectral armor to wurm - but for 99% of your fights this is overkill and you don't need that much mobility, not even against thieves or rangers.

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YcMPWJOuWntbA-zRJYiR3fZkZq2bVZ3JJM+D-eThis build outruns GS warriors. Deadeyes can't follow and catch you if you decide to leave them alone. Try that with core or scourge.

For zergs (even though the OP didn't ask for it):https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_DM_Power_ReaperThis build is all about vulnerability and some other condi aoe application that stacks carapace withing a blink of an eye, e.g. cast NCSY! in a blob fight and you have instant 30 carapace. Don't play this in 1v1! I've encountered lots of players on that build and they are all freekills 1v1.

There are no core builds that are equally strong as these two builds.

Scourge is only viable if your blob demands barriers. For damage it's a lot weaker than the reaper zerg build.

[Shroud.2307]

Demolisher Reaper.

This is the build I've been using for over a year. Durable without sacrificing too much damage. I still regularly see 10k+ crits on certain attacks even post patch.

In case anyone wants to step in to criticize, yes, the Signet version is stronger. I prefer this build however as it has served me well for a very long time and still holds up.

[Sylpheed.8163]

Nice, thanks for all the feed back! Runes of speed looks really nice, will have to save up for those as they're pretty pricey for me atm. I think I'll try to mix and match berserker, marauder and cavalier pieces while running spite/soul/reaper and see how it goes. ^^

[Stand The Wall.6987]

if you're having trouble with life force gain try eternal life + decimate defenses. imo sig of undeath is a wasted slot on reaper, especially for roaming since the active is useless.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

Gotta say those builds look sexy. I only started playing Reaper seriously (in PvE) past few months, and it is my go-to for PvE content these day. I just hate swapping between PvE and WvW on the same character, but maybe once I've finished my legendary armor on her I might give these a whirl. (no pun)

[Brujeria.7536]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:In WvW, Reaper is behind core and scourge in almost every aspect. It may perform a bit well in organized groups, but when it comes to roaming reaper is only good for killing guards, noobs and like 2-3 other specs from other classes.Tell that to my fanclub-guilds in wvw. And I play reaper exclusively.

Signet Reaper (shroud camping) with speed rune is a great roaming build with unmatched mobility for necro standards since you can stay in shroud and cast RS2 several times in a row while having basically superspeed all the time. If you want to even improve that, change spectral armor to wurm - but for 99% of your fights this is overkill and you don't need that much mobility, not even against thieves or rangers.

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YcMPWJOuWntbA-zRJYiR3fZkZq2bVZ3JJM+D-e

This build outruns GS warriors. Deadeyes can't follow and catch you if you decide to leave them alone. Try that with core or scourge.

That rune really changes a lot of things. But on the other side on the fence its just a rune, if a warror would use it as well the benefit should be nullified. Thanks for sharing though, i would never have tried to use that one otherwise.

[Sylpheed.8163]

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:In WvW, Reaper is behind core and scourge in almost every aspect. It may perform a bit well in organized groups, but when it comes to roaming reaper is only good for killing guards, noobs and like 2-3 other specs from other classes.Tell that to my fanclub-guilds in wvw. And I play reaper exclusively.

Signet Reaper (shroud camping) with speed rune is a great roaming build with unmatched mobility for necro standards since you can stay in shroud and cast RS2 several times in a row while having basically superspeed all the time. If you want to even improve that, change spectral armor to wurm - but for 99% of your fights this is overkill and you don't need that much mobility, not even against thieves or rangers.

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YcMPWJOuWntbA-zRJYiR3fZkZq2bVZ3JJM+D-e

This build outruns GS warriors. Deadeyes can't follow and catch you if you decide to leave them alone. Try that with core or scourge.

That rune really changes a lot of things. But on the other side on the fence its just a rune, if a warror would use it as well the benefit should be nullified. Thanks for sharing though, i would never have tried to use that one otherwise.

I'm not sure that's how it works though, or everyone would be running speed runes to 'nullify' them. Warriors and thieves already have a ton of mobility, so using runes to augment their sustain or damage is 100% more valuable than being able to run a little faster. The way I see it, reaper has mobility issues and not so much with sustain and burst, so speed runes are a great choice. Of course, this is just how I think it works.

[Brujeria.7536]

@Sylpheed.8163 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"trixantea.1230" said:In WvW, Reaper is behind core and scourge in almost every aspect. It may perform a bit well in organized groups, but when it comes to roaming reaper is only good for killing guards, noobs and like 2-3 other specs from other classes.Tell that to my fanclub-guilds in wvw. And I play reaper exclusively.

Signet Reaper (shroud camping) with speed rune is a great roaming build with unmatched mobility for necro standards since you can stay in shroud and cast RS2 several times in a row while having basically superspeed all the time. If you want to even improve that, change spectral armor to wurm - but for 99% of your fights this is overkill and you don't need that much mobility, not even against thieves or rangers.

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAc2FlRw0YcMPWJOuWntbA-zRJYiR3fZkZq2bVZ3JJM+D-e

This build outruns GS warriors. Deadeyes can't follow and catch you if you decide to leave them alone. Try that with core or scourge.

That rune really changes a lot of things. But on the other side on the fence its just a rune, if a warror would use it as well the benefit should be nullified. Thanks for sharing though, i would never have tried to use that one otherwise.

I'm not sure that's how it works though, or everyone would be running speed runes to 'nullify' them. Warriors and thieves already have a ton of mobility, so using runes to augment their sustain or damage is 100% more valuable than being able to run a little faster. The way I see it, reaper has mobility issues and not so much with sustain and burst, so speed runes are a great choice. Of course, this is just how I think it works.

Yes, reaper is good on the damage and sustain side of things if you manage lifeforce well. With this rune you increase your mobility by a lot which can help kite if you wait for crucial or shroud cooldowns.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Marauder and valk or zerk+valk to 66% crit chance to optimize the rest in health. Accuracy sigils + Cleansing on GS and Bloodlust on Axe. Go A/D for condi cleanse and group weakness/corruption.

S/SR/R still works great for solo and roaming play. If you use mobility and GS+Axe well you won't have problems. I still kill around 95% of thieves and deadeyes 1v1 when above 50% LF.

Spiteful Renewal + ATP +Signets of Suffering.Unyielding + VP + DP.
Relentless Pursuit + Soul Eater + RO

YSIM + Spectral Armor + Suffer +Signet of the Locust + CttB.
SotL is vastly underrated and is a 10k heal on 5 targets (mesmer clones, tank ele summons, ranger pets, minions, etc.), and solves your mobility problem until you need a second heal. Combo with GS4 and you can get a significant reprieve from pressure with the weakness + blind + huge heal comboing from the utils + Soul Eater, and cycling into cleanses every swap thanks to GS sigils + shroud interaction and A/D #4's condi transfer.

Should have around 26-27k hp without PoK buffs and ~3k base power with about 220 base crit damage. You'll hit 10 might quickly, and will gain strength with the vuln applications over the course of the fight, have the same base mobility as everyone else, and can use and abuse RS2 and GS5 to keep engages going.

Practice your CTTB usage and RS5 and you get a LOT of layered CC as well. Paid with corruption access on A/D you're a menace when anyone gets close and have a lot of LF generation tools to maintain shroud well.

DM/BM is good for core and coordinated blobs, but it's significantly weaker for when you're on your own. I can usually dive 30man zergs solo, get a few downs, and disengage before I'm out of gas as SoTL does SERIOUS healing when diving groups of players.

[yiksing.9432]

You can always build a condi reaper

[Burjis.3087]

I play a signet reaper marauder build for wvw (roaming mostly but it's good in zerg fights too). It has very high single target damage and high aoe melee damage and very good survivability too. The superiority of a reaper signet build over a core necro is its mobility.